International Brewers Buying Breweries In China

The English version of the Chinese newspaper, The People’s Daily, had an interesting article about international breweries investing heavily in the world’s biggest beer market: China. Entitled, Big Brewers Fermenting Deals in Southwest, it details, for example, how MolsonCoors has “recently spent $40 million to buy a 51 percent stake in a new joint venture with the Hebei Si’hai Beer Company.” Coors Light “now accounts for 10 percent of China’s premium beer market.” Carlsberg is making similar investments, and Anheuser-Busch InBev “started work on a new brewery in Ziyang, Sichuan province, this year.” And that’s just in the southern part of China. It’s a big market.